It’s easy to feel like the world has tilted off its axis (especially in 2025). Between the endless stream of news, social media noise, and the pace of change, many people describe a strange kind of mental fog (a sense that reality itself has become hard to hold onto). Writer Jia Tolentino recently explored this in her (wonderful!) New Yorker essay, My Brain Finally Broke, where she describes her thoughts blurring and words losing meaning.
But not everyone feels this way. Some people, especially those who spend less time in the online churn and more time in embodied, face-to-face connection, still feel grounded and focused. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, there’s real value in asking: how can we stay clear-minded and connected when the world feels overwhelming?
With today being the last day before we move into a new year, I thought I would contribute to answering that question:
1. Remember what’s real
Screens pull us into abstract worlds (arguments, images, numbers), but our bodies live here, in the concrete world. Grounding starts with noticing what’s immediately real: your breath, the air in the room, the sound of another voice. Slowing down to notice the physical world re-anchors you to something true.
If you find yourself lost in the swirl of information, try one small embodied act: go outside, touch something living, or simply breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth until you can feel your feet again.
2. Protect your attention like it matters, because it does
Many clients describe scrolling as though their attention were being stolen. In reality, it is. Digital platforms are designed to fragment focus. Protecting your attention might mean setting a cutoff time for screens at night, choosing one reliable news source instead of five, or leaving your phone in another room for an hour each day.
Reclaiming your attention is a way of reclaiming agency. You’re telling your mind: I decide what comes in.
This kind of attentional fatigue shows up often in midlife, especially during periods of transition, which we explore further in How Therapy Can Help During Midlife Transitions.
3. Talk about the overwhelm instead of managing it alone
This one is huge. The more disconnected we feel, the easier it is to believe that no one else understands what’s happening inside us. But the very act of naming your fatigue or confusion (out loud, with someone you trust) can bring relief. Therapy offers that kind of space: a slower conversation that reintroduces perspective, regulation, and meaning. However, don't just talk with your therapist about what you're struggling with.
If you’d like to learn more about this process, our Individual Counseling page describes how slowing down in therapy can help you reconnect to your mind and values.
4. Focus on connection, not comprehension
You don’t have to understand everything that’s happening in the world. You only have to keep relating (to yourself, to loved ones, to the parts of life that still feel whole). When we turn toward human connection, our nervous systems remember safety and warmth, which restores clarity in ways that no information ever could.
If that feels difficult, it might help to read Why Emotional Intimacy Feels Harder Lately—and How to Rebuild It, which explores how modern stress and distraction can affect closeness between partners.
Staying human in an age of overload
Tolentino’s experience (her “broken” brain) isn’t a failure of willpower. It’s a symptom of a world that demands more input than our minds can process. But there’s another way to live: one that favors depth over speed, conversation over consumption, and human presence over digital performance.
Even if you don’t feel your brain breaking, you might notice subtle ways that the pace of life makes you less curious, less patient, or less emotionally available. Those are gentle invitations to pause and re-center.
If you’d like more guidance on how couples can stay connected through this constant noise, you might find The Power of Non-Verbal Communication a good follow-up read. Sometimes the quietest gestures (the glance, the touch, the breath) are what bring us back to what’s real.